QUESTION: Is there a way to discern how much memory is being used by a specific Firefox add-on? I looked at Process Explorer but couldn't find the mem usage of each specific add-on. I'm not saying the data aren't there -- just saying that I couldn't find any such data. Reason for asking: I have heard that HTTPS Everywhere has a heavy footprint so I wanted to see for myself HOW heavy it really is.
@ronjor -- Thanks for the link. It is out of date for current FF browser. The about:memory page does list each add-on, but the data shown is the total memory used by all add-ons. The memory usage by each add-on is not given anywhere on that page that I could find. Also, the FF extension mentioned in the link you gave (about-addons-memory) is no longer extant. @Buddel -- Yessss! The about : performance does the job. Much much thanks! (SEE NOTE below) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It looks to me like HTTPS Everywhere is, indeed, a fairly heavy add-on. It uses nearly 30MB memory on my box -- waay more than all my other add-ons combined. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NOTE: There seems to be NO way to turn off smilies for a given post. That's why I had to write about : performance (spaces inserted) because putting a colon directly next to p gives this . That explains why Buddel showed it with HTML using code followed by /code. @ronjor -- Is there any way to turn off smilies for a given post?
1st variant: Using of [CODE]-tags [CODE]about:performance[/CODE] Result: Code: about:performance 2nd variant: Using of [PLAIN]-tags [PLAIN]about:performance[/PLAIN] Result: about:performance
What exactly is your box? Just curious. Even on the Core 2 Duo system I built about 10 years back with 2GB RAM, 30MB was "peanuts." BTW, the AdGuard extension: 81 MB. In case you haven't seen this, about:about - check it out. Too much fun for any geek to have. My favorite BB Code tag is the one that does this: I didn't mean that!
As to my own box, I am a guy. As to my computer's box, she's a Dell laptop with 4GB of RAM so -- Yes -- 30MB is no big deal. However, I am not fully convinced that *HTTPS Everywhere* (Call it "HE") is pulling its weight in terms of essentiality. If HE was less than 1 MB (like each of my other add-ons) I would say, "Why bother checking? Just copy the smart guys & run it." But since HE is bigger than the aggregate of all his friends put together, I ask myself, "Why the heck am I letting that fat-*** blimp make his lunch by digging around in my computer's food locker?" NOTE: I programmed (Forth, Pascal, compiled-basic) back in the days when state-of-the-art ram was 64K & my modem gave me a blazing fast 56K. I'm still adjusting. Slooooowly. So -- I'm still looking for a non-tech explanation of why HE is worth its salt.
OK. The popular use of "heavy" in this tech context is used to indicate a decline in performance. By your reference to that human characteristic and your food locker (stocked with cheese and cracker snack packs), you mean bloated code. For all I knew, you could have had one of those 12" Atom laptops with a GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage and Windows 7 Starter. Not that they don't have a niche. But in case you haven't checked the EFF site, this could be the non-tech explanation you seek: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/how-https-everywhere-keeps-protecting-users-increasingly-encrypted-web https://atlas.eff.org/index.html Seriously, your 1K "smart guys" code won't cut it. HTTPS Everywhere is Snowden recommended - The Intercept, November 12, 2015. I got ya blast from the past beat: 16K and 110 baud acoustic modem and loved every minute hour of it! No coding, tho. I'm more of a soldering iron and circuit board guy. I'm outta here. Cheers.
HE is almost useless now, only poorly designed/maintained sites aren't https, so then i won't even waste a minute on them.
But: 1. if you just typed domain without https or made mistake and typed http 2. somebody wants to do MitM-style SSLStrip attack and is along the route they may proxy connection to that site via unauthenticated, unencrypted connection even if site is only available through TLS connection
My point is that for people who don't know about it or don't have discipline to make sure they there is https before domain it may be useful extension.